


the bright side

by pondify



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: M/M, Marijuana, Mutual Pining, Post-Squip, Romance, Shotgunning, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 23:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11862366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pondify/pseuds/pondify
Summary: When Jeremy gets into Michael’s car on a freezing grey Friday afternoon following play rehearsal, he doesn’t think anything will be different - but his hands are shaking.





	the bright side

**Author's Note:**

> it's my first bmc fanfiction! ahhh!
> 
> i haven't written fic in ages, but this fandom brought it back out of me lmao. i'm trying to just get back into it with a few one-shots to start, but I have some longer stories in the planning stages!
> 
> i really hope you guys enjoy this! special thanks to my friend ashton for helping me with this fic!
> 
> disclaimer: don't do drugs kids

When Jeremy gets into Michael’s car on a freezing grey Friday afternoon following play rehearsal, he doesn’t think anything will be different - but his hands are shaking.

“What’s up, buddy?” Michael says cheerfully, reaching over to clasp Jeremy’s shoulder. His touch lingers for just a moment longer than normal; ever since the SQUIP incident a few months previously, Michael’s been a lot more physical (read: clingy) than he used to be, almost as though he’s afraid of Jeremy disappearing again. But Jeremy has no room to talk. He’s been the same way, and he finds himself mourning the loss of Michael’s warm touch.

Jeremy leans his head back and takes a deep breath, trying to allow himself to actually relax for the first time all day. “Not much, I guess,” he says lightly, hoping to play off his anxiety. “How was your day?”

“It was fine.” Michael shrugs. “How about yours, though? How are things with Christine?”

“Uh…” Jeremy winces. “Not great.”

Christine broke up with him. Their relationship had lasted a whopping three weeks, spanning most of November and several awkward dates, and while they’d parted on mutually amicable terms shortly after Thanksgiving, things are still… awkward at best. She barely speaks to him at play rehearsal, which makes things significantly tense, considering that they both have fairly large roles and are forced to interact every day. Today was worse than others, though, and he isn’t exactly sure why. 

Michael waits for him to continue, but when it’s clear that Jeremy isn’t going to continue, he says, “Hey, look on the bright side!”

Jeremy glances over at him. “What bright side?”

“W-well,” Michael stutters, seeming at a loss for words, which is odd since he’s the one who brought it up. “Uh, now we can get stoned together again?”

A slight smile creeps onto Jeremy’s face. “I guess you’re right,” he says. Christine liked Michael, but she hadn’t really been okay with Jeremy smoking weed while they were dating. She claimed not to like the smell, and later admitted that a big factor in it was the fact that it was illegal, which Jeremy had had a sneaking suspicion about from their first conversation. He didn’t smoke often and still doesn’t, but he’s missed hanging out with Michael.

“Awesome,” Michael says, beaming at him and looking incredibly relieved. “Hey, do you wanna come to my place now? I have some stuff I wanna try out.”

“Sure, man,” Jeremy says, shivering in his cardigan as Michael starts up the car again and a blast of cold air hits him directly in the face, renewing the cold all over again. The PT Cruiser always takes a while to warm up, especially on days as cold as today.

“Sorry,” Michael says, turning down the air. He pulls out of the school parking lot, practically speeding down the road in the direction of their neighborhood in an effort to get the heater going faster.

Jeremy rubs his hands together. “You excited for break?” he asks.

Michael scoffs. “Let me think. Am I excited to get back to playing video games in my pajamas all day and staying up until ass o’clock in the morning? Hell yeah. Am I excited for taking final exams for an entire week before that? Considerably less hell yeah.”

“Me too.” Jeremy laughs, and Michael joins him.

Silence falls over the car once their chuckles die down, but it’s a comfortable one, which Michael’s grateful for. It’s only recently stopped being awkward between the two boys, and he couldn’t be happier that things are back to normal between him and his best friend.

And sure, maybe there are days when he wishes it could be more than that, days when he thinks longingly of the way Jeremy had blushed that day Rich had written “boyf” and “riends” on their respective backpacks, but so what? Michael’s known he likes guys since pretty much birth, and he doesn’t foresee it changing anytime soon. But with Jeremy, it’s… different.

Still, Michael has to content himself with the way things are. He might be more than halfway in love with Jeremy, but ever since everything that happened at the beginning of the semester - especially at Jake’s Halloween party - he’s known he has to take what he can get with the other boy. He’s far too afraid of losing him again to risk their friendship now.

Jeremy, for his part, has been slowly noticing things about Michael that he never has before, despite knowing him for twelve years. Ever since - well, ever since Michael basically saved all their lives at the play, really, he’s been making a mental list of and cataloguing his favorite little quirks and things about Michael.

Like the way he’s driving right now, for example. It’s the same way as he always does, slouched back and steering with one hand, fingers tapping the wheel to the beat of whatever Bob Marley song is playing softly through the speakers, occasionally humming along under his breath and bobbing his head. He looks especially adorable today, hair a little mussed, glasses slipping down his nose, a thick black jacket layered over his favorite red hoodie. Jeremy’s honestly done for.

“We’re here!” Michael announces, interrupting Jeremy’s train of thought and making him jump.

“R-right, sorry.” Jeremy looks away quickly, cheeks turning red, and hopes Michael hadn’t noticed the way he’d been staring. How is he going to explain  _ that?  _

He grabs his backpack, swinging it over one shoulder and getting clumsily out of the car. The sky is already growing dark, courtesy of the short New Jersey winter days, and the boys’ breaths create wispy clouds of fog in the bitingly cold that remind Jeremy of the weed they’re about to smoke. Tiny snowflakes are starting to drift down as they head up the driveway to Michael’s front door, and Jeremy laughs when he sees Michael trying to catch one on his tongue.

It’s not much warmer in the basement. Michael drags the space heater over to the beanbags and fetches a couple of spare blankets from the closet under the stairs, but that’s pretty much the best they can do.

“Here ya go,” he says, draping a blanket over Jeremy’s shoulders and smoothing it down, involuntarily making a shiver run down Jeremy’s spine as he lingers there for a moment. “Sorry about the cold. It’ll probably warm up a little more soon though, huh?”

Jeremy chuckles. “Sounds good. So, what was the ‘stuff’ you wanted to try out?” he asks, pulling the blanket tighter around himself. 

“Oh, yeah!” Michael shrugs off his jacket and tosses it on the couch, then pulls out a small wooden box from under one of the cushions, then joins Jeremy on the beanbags. He opens the box and produces a blue package with a white owl on it, along with a lighter and a ziplock bag of weed.

“So, I got this vanilla-flavored paper, right? And I figured it’d be cool to try, y’know, with the holidays coming up,” Michael says, deftly rolling a blunt. For a moment, Jeremy can’t tear his eyes off Michael’s long fingers, but he manages to look up when Michael continues, “It’s supposed to be really good.”

He lifts the blunt to his lips, holding it there and flicking the lighter on. The flame illuminates his features in the dim room, reflecting off his glasses, and Jeremy watches, transfixed, as Michael lights the end of the joint and takes a long drag. Then he closes his eyes, holding it in. God, he’s so  _ cool _ .

“Shit, that  _ is  _ good,” he says, smoke billowing out of his mouth with the words. “Here, you wanna try?”

Jeremy swallows hard, hoping the darkness hides his blush as he nods and reaches for the blunt. Michael passes it over, and their fingers brush for an instant.

This isn’t the first time they’ve gotten high together, but it’s been a while, and something feels different tonight. As Jeremy takes a hit, letting the smoke settle in his lungs before blowing it out, the only thing he can think about is the fact that Michael’s lips had been wrapped around the same spot as his just seconds before.

“What do you think?” Michael asks. It takes Jeremy a second to remember what he’s talking about - the vanilla, right.

(If he’s being honest, he hadn’t even registered the taste of the weed, much less the paper itself.)

He hits it again just to try and focus on the flavor, his brow furrowing slightly. It’s definitely there once he’s concentrating, a spicy sort of sweetness that’s usually lacking in weed, and Jeremy actually enjoys it.

“It is really good,” he agrees, coughing as he hands it back to Michael.

“Yeah?” Michael looks pleased. “I thought you’d like it. Oh, hey, I learned how to French inhale, watch this -” He takes a hit, then slowly lets the thick smoke pour out of his mouth while inhaling through his nose, breathing it back in.

It’s both impressive and incredibly hot, and Jeremy hopes his voice isn’t shaking when he says, “Wow. That’s awesome, dude.”

“Thanks.” Michael blows the rest of the smoke away and grins at him. “It takes a little while to figure out how to do it, but once you do, it gets you stoned really quick - quicker than almost anything, actually.”

Jeremy’s already a little light-headed, a little buzzed, and he’ll blame it on the weed because sober Jeremy wouldn’t ask what Michael means by “almost”. But high Jeremy does exactly that.

“Well…” Michael frowns, twirling the blunt absently between his fingers as Jeremy waits anxiously for him to finish. “Um, there is this thing called shotgunning. I’ve never done it before, but I’ve heard it’s, uh, fun.”

“What is it?” Jeremy asks, genuinely curious.

“Um, here, I can show you, i-if you want,” Michael mumbles, sounding uncharacteristically flustered.

“Sure.”

Michael opens his mouth to say something else, then appears to think better of it, closing his mouth again. He takes a longer drag, the end of the joint igniting as he does so, then scoots closer to Jeremy, leaning in until their faces are inches apart.

Jeremy’s heart is pounding as Michael tilts his head and closes his eyes, but he’s paralyzed, not daring to move. Then Michael slowly exhales smoke, and Jeremy, quickly catching on, parting his lips and inhaling it deeply. A string of smoke connects their mouths, and the air is hazy, the scent of weed hanging around them; it feels like the most intimate thing Jeremy has ever done.

Michael finishes breathing out and sits back, opening his eyes halfway. If Jeremy didn’t know better, he’d almost think his friend is  _ nervous  _ as he says, “What’s the verdict?”

Letting the excess smoke leave him, Jeremy considers it. His lungs are burning, but not too badly, and he definitely feels a lot dizzier than before, though whether it’s from the weed or Michael’s proximity, he’s not entirely sure. All he’s sure of is that he wants Michael closer again.

So he swallows his anxiety and dares to say, “I don’t know. Maybe we should try again.”

Michael freezes, coughing a little before nodding. “S-sure, uh, yeah, we could definitely try again.”

Pushing his glasses up his nose, Michael puts the joint between his lips again, a determined look on his face as he fills his mouth with smoke and leans close to Jeremy once more. This time, neither of them close their eyes, and the intensity in Michael’s gaze shakes Jeremy to his core. Their faces are closer together this time, their noses almost touching, and he aches to close the distance.

Michael backs up first, although he stays much closer to Jeremy than before. “I dunno about you, but that seems pretty… effective,” he says.

“Yeah.” Jeremy’s well on his way to being stoned, and his body feels heavy and pleasant. “I can taste the vanilla.”

The other boy laughs, but it sounds strained. “Jesus Christ, Jer.”

Jeremy reaches forward and takes the blunt from Michael’s hand. “I want to try,” he says, and takes a hit.

His best friend’s eyes are wide behind his glasses as Jeremy leans in. He takes care to control the stream of smoke coming out of his mouth and watches as Michael breathes it in, his tanned cheeks flushed. 

Just as Jeremy is beginning to move away, Michael suddenly grabs him by the edges of the blanket draped around him and pulls him closer, pressing his lips against Jeremy’s. The skinnier boy flails for a moment, stunned, but he quickly melts into the kiss.

Michael tastes like weed and cherry slushies, and his lips are warm and a little chapped. Jeremy adds this information to his list of favorite things about him.

He cups Michael’s jaw in his hand, resting his other on Michael’s jean-clad knee. The kiss is slow and unhurried and smoky, their mouths moving together in tandem, and neither of them feel cold anymore. 

They part slowly, both of their eyes still closed, and Jeremy’s thumb strokes Michael’s cheekbone. “You know what?” he murmurs.

“What?” Michael’s voice is warm and breathless.

“I can definitely see the bright side to this.”

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr!
> 
>  
> 
> [playground-ghost.tumblr.com](http://playground-ghost.tumblr.com)


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